Youths play dodge ball during a birthday party Saturday at Sluggers Den in Saratoga Springs.
(ED BURKE/eburke@saratogian.com)

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- With baseball season winding up, kids hoping to make the team this year may be looking for a place to practice their swing. Up to the mound steps Sluggers Den.

The three-batting-tunnel baseball and softball training facility opened quietly in the beginning of the year, and owner Bret McArthur says kids have been stepping up to the plate, honing their skills for the first days of spring.

"Early on, we've had a lot of traveling teams," he said, standing in the room where the scent of the freshly laid AstroTurf hangs in the air.

"It's really become a nine-month-out-of-the-year sport," he said. "That's part of the reason we did this."

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McArthur said the only other indoor batting area recently closed in Ballston, and seeing a need for one and having a love for the game, he decided to take a swing at it.

He bought the equipment he needed from the closing facility and worked out a deal with the owner of Cutting Edge Martial Arts on Ballston Avenue.

The martial arts facility only used a portion of the space in the Price Chopper Plaza, and Sluggers Den fit nicely into the space between it and the music facility in the back.

Those wanting to swing with a bat rather than their hands and feet will need to walk straight through the martial arts studio in the front and follow the signs to the batting tunnels.

McArthur is still putting some of the final touches on Sluggers Den. At this point, the hallway to the batting cages is unfinished, but he says it will soon be made to look like the tunnel to the field in Yankee Stadium.

"It's coming together," McArthur said, adding that he could have waited until it was complete to open, but "I had worked so hard on it, I wanted to hear the sound of baseballs being hit."

The facility doesn't just offer batting cages. He said they have organized training programs and as of Feb. 25 will start an after-school program that will take kids right from school and put them in front of the plate.

As Little League and Cal Ripken baseball programs get started up, too, he said they will host a training camp for moms and dads who have the desire, but not necessarily the know-how, to coach their kids' teams.

McArthur, whose children both played in local leagues, said he has been doing all he can to support them. He said teams looking to practice their swings early in the morning before school will have the cages to use for free, and Saturday nights he will have local teams and nonprofits host a "Kids Night Out" event to raise money for their organizations.

"I'm not going to get rich doing this, but I'm having fun," he said.

For more information about Sluggers Den, go to www.sluggersden.com, call 772-4487 or find them on Facebook.